One night, after having dinner with former significant other and her parents ( which went really well I commend myself for my people skills ), we ended up back at her house for some down time. Things were laid back as were we on the couch, just joking around and halfway paying attention to Arrested Development playing on the tv directly in front of us. That plus a little bickering here and there, as she never really had too much respect for her parents, which she painfully admitted and I for some reason found funny. I never spent time thinking on her flaws, they didn't matter to me. But generally, she was at times difficult with them. Moving on, it wasn't long before her parents bowed out, and left the living room to the two of us, which tended to happen a lot ( 95% of the time ). And so as usual, we continued to lounge on the couch, burning through episode after episode until eventually the season ended and the tv went blue. An eerie silence fell over the room and for some reason this prompted a "life talk", which I guess makes sense considering we are, as youths, experiencing existential crises and "finding ourselves" moments on a nightly basis.
It started off that, as I said, we were just sitting around, but she had a peculiar way of looking at me that made me speak. And I'm not in the least bit sure what she wanted to hear, anything I guess, but with that i shared with her some thoughts on a concept I had recently began to bite into. Gave her a chance to chew on it for a minute. And I think the consistency and the taste frightened her.
I talked about the bare reality of the life I had ahead of me. And in some ways hers too, for that matter, if everything goes as well as it realistically can and according to plan.
Let's say I do go and stick with being a lawyer. So I'm in school give or take 8 years. By then I will be 26, and ideally have a solid job with which I plan to chase dreams and live a little. You know, travel the world, live abroad for a year or two. Go backpacking, assimilate with a culture, spend a week in the wilderness. So, say also that I have a girlfriend at said age, in my eyes I have about 4 to 5 years to live MY life and take care of myself ( and my girlfriend ) before that is no more. Because when you have children, such things are no longer possible. I better be fully content with whatever transpires in those few years, because loose ends tied or not, a new chapter is coming. Because though scary to think about, I want so very badly to be a father one day. And a great one. I want to be everything for my kids. I want to be the father that in the course of a statistically possible divorce, fights and wins the custody of his kids and lives out the plot of The Pursuit of Happiness and loses ten years of his life and the color in his hair to misfortune, all for his kids. I want to be young enough in my parenting that I can do things for my kids and participate in everything with them. And it is for this reason that nothing in my life will be solely mine to deal with anymore... If I mess up, my family too will face the repercussions. Financially, in the case of any physical injury that hinders my ability to work, you name it. I won't even have the luxury of being able to find space and distance myself for much needed alone time because my kids and wife and everyone else will need me. And worry about me. And at times I'll hate it, but I will have to be okay with it. Because my son might want someone to kick a ball around with him as soon as I get home from a particularly hard day at work. Or my daughter might need a hand with her science project and understanding boys or track. I'm taking account of these things. And... Even if my kids turn their backs on me and throw to waste everything I ever do for them, because they're my kids, I'll love them unconditionally. And it will be great...And it will suck...And it will be joyous and painful and every other possible thing in the spectrum. And I will have to be okay with this.
There will come a day when they move out, and take the world on themselves. Sink or swim. See if they have the stuff. Hopefully my parenting will have set them up for success, but regardless they will still be my responsibility ( college loans, family events, holidays, eventual grand kids and marriages ). Even if they never come to visit me or give me a call. They will live complex, ever changing lives themselves, much like the one I did in my own youth, and I will talk about the good old days, very possibly to myself. And it might stay that way til the day I die. And I will have to be okay with this. Maybe I will be, maybe I won't.
"Really makes you think, doesn't it?"
With this, i let the silence fill whatever holes my speech might've left in all the droning like a spread of fresh cement over a cracked pavement. It was only then, that I noticed that all this time i had been looking her in the eyes, steady and deliberate. But more honestly, through her. Past her.
As the trance ended, I noticed the peculiar way she gazed at me once again, this time a little different. I could see so much more than she would care to share. Fear and disappointment and bittersweet joy and acceptance all at once, caged behind her red cracked and tear filled eyes. But not a single tear fell...And I'm glad. Because in a way, I needed to see her this way. To see her take it all in stride as I had. Make me at least feel a little more at peace with what lay ahead of me, and once again, be okay with things. Though to be fair, she'd never been very expressive, so the validity of this account is unclear...But I'm going to cling to this, because as of right now, it's all I have.
I left soon after, though the time on the clock surely couldn't have accounted for the seemingly indefinite silence we sat in. Locked in a sort of eye contact without truly looking at each other, but beyond.
...I know what I saw... But what about her?
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The way she carried herself, spoke to her parents, thought of their motives, all changed after this night. Which I guess is perceptibly irrelevant information, but to the clever mind, the underlying meanings of this are clear.
It started off that, as I said, we were just sitting around, but she had a peculiar way of looking at me that made me speak. And I'm not in the least bit sure what she wanted to hear, anything I guess, but with that i shared with her some thoughts on a concept I had recently began to bite into. Gave her a chance to chew on it for a minute. And I think the consistency and the taste frightened her.
I talked about the bare reality of the life I had ahead of me. And in some ways hers too, for that matter, if everything goes as well as it realistically can and according to plan.
Let's say I do go and stick with being a lawyer. So I'm in school give or take 8 years. By then I will be 26, and ideally have a solid job with which I plan to chase dreams and live a little. You know, travel the world, live abroad for a year or two. Go backpacking, assimilate with a culture, spend a week in the wilderness. So, say also that I have a girlfriend at said age, in my eyes I have about 4 to 5 years to live MY life and take care of myself ( and my girlfriend ) before that is no more. Because when you have children, such things are no longer possible. I better be fully content with whatever transpires in those few years, because loose ends tied or not, a new chapter is coming. Because though scary to think about, I want so very badly to be a father one day. And a great one. I want to be everything for my kids. I want to be the father that in the course of a statistically possible divorce, fights and wins the custody of his kids and lives out the plot of The Pursuit of Happiness and loses ten years of his life and the color in his hair to misfortune, all for his kids. I want to be young enough in my parenting that I can do things for my kids and participate in everything with them. And it is for this reason that nothing in my life will be solely mine to deal with anymore... If I mess up, my family too will face the repercussions. Financially, in the case of any physical injury that hinders my ability to work, you name it. I won't even have the luxury of being able to find space and distance myself for much needed alone time because my kids and wife and everyone else will need me. And worry about me. And at times I'll hate it, but I will have to be okay with it. Because my son might want someone to kick a ball around with him as soon as I get home from a particularly hard day at work. Or my daughter might need a hand with her science project and understanding boys or track. I'm taking account of these things. And... Even if my kids turn their backs on me and throw to waste everything I ever do for them, because they're my kids, I'll love them unconditionally. And it will be great...And it will suck...And it will be joyous and painful and every other possible thing in the spectrum. And I will have to be okay with this.
There will come a day when they move out, and take the world on themselves. Sink or swim. See if they have the stuff. Hopefully my parenting will have set them up for success, but regardless they will still be my responsibility ( college loans, family events, holidays, eventual grand kids and marriages ). Even if they never come to visit me or give me a call. They will live complex, ever changing lives themselves, much like the one I did in my own youth, and I will talk about the good old days, very possibly to myself. And it might stay that way til the day I die. And I will have to be okay with this. Maybe I will be, maybe I won't.
"Really makes you think, doesn't it?"
With this, i let the silence fill whatever holes my speech might've left in all the droning like a spread of fresh cement over a cracked pavement. It was only then, that I noticed that all this time i had been looking her in the eyes, steady and deliberate. But more honestly, through her. Past her.
As the trance ended, I noticed the peculiar way she gazed at me once again, this time a little different. I could see so much more than she would care to share. Fear and disappointment and bittersweet joy and acceptance all at once, caged behind her red cracked and tear filled eyes. But not a single tear fell...And I'm glad. Because in a way, I needed to see her this way. To see her take it all in stride as I had. Make me at least feel a little more at peace with what lay ahead of me, and once again, be okay with things. Though to be fair, she'd never been very expressive, so the validity of this account is unclear...But I'm going to cling to this, because as of right now, it's all I have.
I left soon after, though the time on the clock surely couldn't have accounted for the seemingly indefinite silence we sat in. Locked in a sort of eye contact without truly looking at each other, but beyond.
...I know what I saw... But what about her?
The way she carried herself, spoke to her parents, thought of their motives, all changed after this night. Which I guess is perceptibly irrelevant information, but to the clever mind, the underlying meanings of this are clear.
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